Two people were sitting down at an old tavern somewhere in the slums of Nordstrom, acting like they were interested in their food. One of them was dead silent, tuned into the background noise of the tavern.

“Did you hear about the young girl during the tax paying day who caught the attention of a Night Watcher?”

“Yeah I did, I thought I heard she was just barely within the age to not need to pay.”

“Not only that, she was eyeballing the Night Watchers a few times. I had a buddy who was behind her saying she was glancing at them in a bit of a panic quite a bit. She is clearly hiding something, and whatever that is may be well worth stealing if it can fool a detection stone.”

“I heard news the house she lived in was vacant according to her neighbors, so its possible she left town. She might have been caught by the guards, as a lot of the smuggling routes were shutdown recently due to a rat leaking the routes, even a popular guide died during their raid.”

“I knew Jim from the few times I smuggled out, he was a nice guy and I was surprised he worked a smuggling route.”

“Everybody has their hardships and …”

The old man who was listening in snapped his fingers and instantly an invisible barrier surrounded the two of them preventing all sound from leaving them.

“This is why, even though the food might be terrible, bars are a great way to gather information.”

“Yes Master.” The young boy, who couldn’t be more than fifteen years old, agreed

“The beggar mentioned that a young girl, who couldn’t be any older than eighteen, bought the artifact. She was probably concerned about being found out, possibly meaning the artifact was activated. It would tie into my theory of the artifact being of divine origin, which may activate her system early.”

He canceled the sound barrier, and gestured the boy to get up, leaving one silver coin on the table, and left the building. The waitress that went to clean up the table got a massive surprise.

…

As I was running towards the forest, I nearly tripped a few times due to how tired I was, but eventually managed to get under the shade of the relatively large trees in this area.

“Now *pant* that I am out of *pant* the city, I should be able to try and secure shelter before it gets too dark.”

I briskly walk through the forest, and notice smoke in the distance. I slow down as I get closer and hear some chatter, I try to tune into the conversation.

“...Hunt today was quite successful, we even managed to grab a wild Gob’lak, which will last at least a couple days.” Just hearing that made Alexis’s mouth water. She hasn’t eaten since the bread she had yesterday, and with all the running she did she was starting to feel desperate. She quickly crawled up to the group of four and hid in a bush a few li away from them. There was a large bulky man with a red beard, and red hair with tan skin and a large broadsword strapped to his back wearing a few large straps and some pants, which was rather gross to Alexis. Then there was another smaller but slightly muscular man wielding a refined looking longbow with a rangers hat with a badge on it indicating he was from a more renown guild, alongside a thick leather chest plate with some chain-mail embedded into it around the more vital areas, and guard around his arm for what I presume is to help shoot. I’ve never shot a bow before in my life so I wouldn’t know. Anyways the next person was wearing a white and gold. It was slightly dusty cloak with some integrate patterns on it and to top it off it had a long hood covering her entire face in shadow, presumably she was a priest with the style of decorations and the large symbol drooping down from her hood symbolizing the Church of Eva. Lastly was one lady with two short swords propped up on the stump she was sitting on and in a relatively heavy chain-mail set along with thick leather, thicker than even the archer.

As I was pondering a way to get some of their food I felt something grab me by the neck. I immediately panic and was thrown out into the open and a dagger thrown next to my head. Trying to identify my combatant I quickly glance and see a women covered in black clothing with a black mask surrounding her face. The only way I could tell it was a women was because the long hair that reached down to her lower neck. She reached for a dagger and jumped on top of me pulling back her hand, ready to kill me at a seconds notice.

“Speak”